


insignificant events (are no longer insignificant)

by mischievous



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischievous/pseuds/mischievous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unfortunately the prompt I wrote this for over at <a href="http://sherlockbbc_fic.livejournal.com/">sherlockbbc_fic</a> has already been filled, so I thought I'd just post it here instead :) The <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/18842.html?thread=113137306">prompt</a> was: <em>They're on a case when Lestrade casually wishes John a happy birthday. Sherlock is stunned that he had no idea. John isn't angry at him or anything though, because that's Sherlock and he wouldn't have expected him to store something as pointless as a birthday in his head. But Sherlock still feels like a crap friend and spends the rest of the day making it up to him (probably overdoing things a bit).</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	insignificant events (are no longer insignificant)

Sherlock is already crouched over the body when John ducks under the crime scene tape to join him, tucking his wallet back into his pocket. Sherlock doesn’t spare a glance for his friend, too focused on trying to determine if the dead woman in front of him was having an affair (she was, a lengthy one with someone who knew she was married by the looks of it) and where she’d travelled in from (the north, not as far as Scotland, but close). Anderson is distracting Sherlock with his mere presence despite being several feet away, his plebian thoughts a screaming distraction to Sherlock’s brilliant mind, but Sherlock has almost managed to block him out completely when Lestrade joins them and says something so utterly distracting that Sherlock loses his train of thought all together.

“What?” Sherlock asks, looking up at Lestrade, the body at his feet forgotten. “What did you just say?”

Lestrade looks confused. “I said, ‘Happy birthday, John’,” he repeats.

“And I was about to say, ‘Thanks, Greg,’,” John says then, smiling at Lestrade before redirecting his attention to the case. “So… when did you find her?”

“A jogger found her about an hour ago,” Lestrade says as he consults his notebook, apparently failing to notice that his consulting detective is no longer detecting. “We’re trying to put together a timeline of her recent mov--”

“Why would you wish John happy birthday?” Sherlock demands, cutting him off as he rises from the ground to stare at them both as if they’ve done something so completely out of character that he doesn’t even know how to deal with it.

John and Lestrade exchange looks. Sherlock knows that look. He’s _worn_ that look. It’s the look that says ‘why on earth am I being asked such a ridiculous question’ and Sherlock isn’t at all used to having it directed at him.

“It’s traditional,” Lestrade says slowly, as if he thinks it’s a trick. “When it’s someone’s birthday, you wish them happy birthday.”

“But--” Sherlock starts to say, and then gets cut off by Donovan as she joins them.

“The jogger didn’t have much to add, boss,” Sally says to Lestrade, pulling her coat tighter around herself. It’s cold outside this morning. “He jogs this way every morning at the same time. All he can tell us is that she wasn’t here yesterday.” She glances at Sherlock and then John. “Freak,” she acknowledges. “John. Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thanks,” John says politely, and that’s kind of the last straw.

“It is _not_ your birthday,” Sherlock says, crossing his arms and glaring at John, who looks puzzled but not offended. “If it was your birthday, I’d know about it.”

“Sherlock, it is my birthday,” John says patiently, while Donovan rolls her eyes and Lestrade sighs. “You might not _know_ that it’s my birthday but, I promise you, it is.”

When Sherlock shows no signs of believing him and returning to the case at hand, John removes his wallet from his pocket again, pulls out his drivers licence and holds it out to Sherlock, who snatches it from his hand, studying the little piece of plastic as if it too could be lying to him. With the irrefutable proof in front of him, he has no choice but to believe it.

“How can it be your birthday and I don’t know about it?” Sherlock says, sounding so genuinely bewildered that John kind of wants to hug him. Lestrade waves Donovan away and strides off to speak to Anderson, leaving John and Sherlock alone with the body.

“It’s just a birthday, Sherlock. It’s not that important,” John says. “There’s a lot of information in your head, and this is a fairly insignificant event.”

Sherlock shakes his head. Nothing about John is insignificant anymore, and he doesn’t know how it can possibly be that Lestrade and Donovan know that it’s John’s birthday today when he doesn’t. They _live_ together. They’re _friends_. If anyone should know it’s John’s birthday, he should. He’s going to make it up to John, he decides then and there.

So here’s what he does:

The case is easily solvable (husband, followed her from her home, saw her with her lover, killed her in a fit of jealous rage -- boring) and once he’s given that information to Lestrade, he drags John away before Lestrade can invite him to the pub the way he’s been thinking about doing ever since they arrived at the crime scene. He hails a taxi and when it stops he opens the door for John, hands the driver a handful of notes, and dispatches John back to Baker Street with the promise that he won't be long.

Then he flags down a second taxi and sets his brain to work on a gift for John. John likes practical things, not fancy ones. He thinks about the cold weather and how John’s brown leather jacket was unfortunately destroyed in an experiment gone wrong, and settles on buying him a replacement. Possibly with some gloves and a scarf. He’s just building this idea into a complete wardrobe when the taxi reaches Regent Street and Sherlock’s eyes light up. Replacing the jacket is a nice idea, but it’ll also remind John that Sherlock ruined his original one in the first place, and besides, it doesn’t feel like _enough_.

It’s his best friend’s birthday and he didn’t even know. If Lestrade hadn’t called with a case, he might never have realised and that idea doesn’t sit well with him. But now he _does_ know, and John’s been complaining about his laptop malfunctioning ever since Sherlock last took it apart as research for a case. (Even Sherlock’s prepared to admit he might have damaged something when he put it back together. It doesn’t work as well as it used to and the vowels have a habit of sticking.)

He pays the cabbie and slides out of the taxi, looking up at the store with a sigh. He hates shopping in general — there are too many people and too much noise, too many Anderson-like thoughts floating around in too small a space — but this is for John, so he squares his shoulders and walks in through the door of the Apple store.

It’s early enough that the store isn’t as crowded as it undoubtedly gets later on but it’s still bad enough. He analyses the available sales assistants and chooses a girl who seems like she’ll be helpful without being annoying. This is going to be an expensive trip and he doesn’t really have the money for it, but what he does have is one of Mycroft’s many credit cards, procured against his knowledge the last time he came to 221B, so he points to a MacBook Pro and tells the girl that he wants one.

To her credit, she’s efficent. He declines her offer to set it up for him, John can do that himself, and she processes the sale quickly, bagging it up and handing it over to him with a minimum of fuss. Sherlock learnt how to fake a perfect Mycroft signature a long time ago and it’s almost galling that in this day and age he no longer gets to use the skill. Pin numbers are so impersonal, even Mycroft’s, which is (somewhat predictably) the year he was born.

Mycroft texts him before he’s even left the store.

_Switching to Apple using **my** credit card, Sherlock? And here I thought you didn’t like to use my money unless you had to. By the way, do wish John a happy birthday from me. MH._

Sherlock stares at his phone in disbelief. 

Really? Even _Mycroft_ knows it’s John’s birthday? He scowls and storms back into the store, seeking out the girl who’d just sold him the laptop. Without waiting for her to ask if something’s wrong he says,

“I want to buy an iPhone. Actually, make it two. And an iPod.”

He leaves for the second time twenty minutes later.

His phone beeps again. The message this time is shorter.

_That was childish, Sherlock. MH._

Sherlock shoves his phone back into his pocket and flags down a cab, feeling somewhat better about the way the day is going.

By the time he gets back to Baker Street, one or two stops later, John is nowhere to be seen. For a moment Sherlock thinks John took ‘back soon’ as ‘feel free to go out if you like, I’ll be a while’ but after a moment he deduces that John has simply stopped in to see Mrs Hudson. _She_ probably knows it’s his birthday too, Sherlock scowls, and briefly wonders if there’s some sort of memo that he missed, because he’s possibly the most observant person in the _world_ and he still doesn’t know how it is that everyone around him knew this fact when he didn’t.

He sets the bags he’s carrying down on the table and sets about filling the kettle, making enough noise as he does so to alert John and Mrs Hudson to his presence. Sure enough, by the time the kettle boils, John appears in the kitchen. His eyes are wide with surprise and Sherlock can tell he’s trying to work out what nefarious experiment Sherlock might be using the kettle for this time.

“You’re back,” he says, and Sherlock still hasn’t figured out why it annoys him less to hear John state the obvious than it does when it’s someone else. “I was starting to wonder where you’d disappeared to.”

Sherlock gestures to the kettle. “Tea?” he offers, and tries to pretend that seeing the surprise turn to mild shock tinged with slight suspicion isn’t just a little bit insulting.

“I’d love a cup,” John says slowly, coming to join Sherlock in the kitchen. “But it’ll have to wait until I can go to the shops, we’re out of milk.”

“I bought some on the way home,” Sherlock says, as if it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

John gapes. He knows that his flatmate’s insistance on avoiding the shops is only partly because of the mundanity. He’s forced Sherlock to go to the shops only once before, and he came back so wound up he didn’t stop pacing _or_ ranting for nearly twenty four hours, at which point John took charge of doing the shopping in favour of being able to sleep.

“I thought we could go to the pub for a drink later,” Sherlock says next, as he methodically makes two cups of tea, and that’s kind of the point where John decides he’s living in bizarro-land, because if there’s one thing guarenteed to agitate Sherlock more than shopping, it’s an evening in the pub when there’s a football match on (which there is tonight, as it happens, not that he actually expects Sherlock to know that).

John takes the cup Sherlock hands him automatically, then puts it down on the side.

“Sherlock,” he says firmly, reaching out to touch him. It’s like touching a live wire, a thrum of tension radiating through his body in a way that’s obvious to someone who knows him as well as John does.

Sherlock looks at him uncertainly, but waits with a patience he almost never displays for John to say whatever it is he’s going to say. It’s starting to freak John out.

“We are _not_ going to the pub,” John says. “There’s a football match on and you’ll hate every minute of it, worse than you usually do. Is all of this because you didn’t know it’s my birthday? Because I’ve already told you -- and I _meant_ it -- that I don’t mind. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, John!“ Sherlock says, the tension in his body ratcheting up another notch, which John didn’t actually think was possible. "It’s your _birthday_. We’re going to do the things that people do on their birthdays.” As if that decides it, he pulls away from John’s grasp and beckons for him to follow into the living room. “I bought you something.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, just spins off into the other room. John follows because... what else can he do? He can’t even say this is typical Sherlock. Perhaps in that he’s going overboard, but John never really expected Sherlock to care much for birthdays somehow. When he gets into the living room and sees the bags there, distinctive silver apples on the side, he has to fight back the urge to groan. Suddenly the strange text he had from Mycroft makes sense.

“Sherlock, what did you buy?” he asks, knowing that neither one of them can currently afford a shopping spree at the Apple store without a cash influx he knows they haven’t had.

“Open the bags and look,” Sherlock says, bouncing on his toes, eyes shining with anticipation and uncertainty and hint of challenge.

John does as he’s instructed, revealing a MacBook Pro, two iPhones and an iPod, none of which they really need, all of which he immediately wants to open. Sherlock is waiting as if for his approval, and John is overwhelmed with affection for his insanely brilliant best friend. If there was ever any doubt that his place in Sherlock’s life is special, today has eradicated it.

“Did you, by any chance,” he asks gently, careful not to sound accusing, “Use Mycroft’s money to pay for this?”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “Why?” he asks.

John pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows Sherlock the text he’d received a little while ago.

_Happy birthday, Doctor Watson. Enjoy your gifts. I think you can safely consider them to be from both my brother and myself. MH._

Sherlock is immediately angry but John takes the phone away before he can send a text back to Mycroft. He doesn’t care who technically paid for the gifts, it’s Sherlock who took the time to go and get them, despite his hatred of shopping. Sherlock who put the thought in to what he might like, and Sherlock who is trying his best to give John the things he thinks he should have on his birthday, no matter the cost to himself.

John steps into Sherlock’s personal space and wraps his arms around him, waiting through the surprise and hesitation until Sherlock finally hugs him back. It’s going to take the rest of the day for Sherlock to calm down from his efforts so far and John has no intention of letting Sherlock take him to the pub and make it worse.

Without letting go, he says, “Thank you, Sherlock,” and feels Sherlock smile against his skin. “But I don’t want to go to the pub tonight. Let’s go out for dinner instead, okay?”

Sherlock pulls back to look at him, searching John’s face for a hint of a lie and finding none. John has Chinese in mind, their favourite Chinese actually, the one their unlikely partnership was first born in and later nurtured.

“Dinner,” Sherlock echoes.

“Dinner,” John confirms. “It’s the company that’s important, Sherlock, not the location.”

He hopes Sherlock picks up on what he'a trying to say: he’s enjoying today because he’s spending it with Sherlock and because Sherlock wants to spend it with him.

Sherlock tightens his hold on John suddenly, squeezing him fiercely and then letting him go in favour of grabbing the bags from the table.

“We should open these first though,” he says decisively, eyes gleaming, and beckons John over to the other side of the couch.

John takes a seat and lets Sherlock’s enthusiasm inspire his own. Really, he thinks they should probably return them, but Mycroft isn’t insisting on it and he can afford it, so. John’s kind of tempted to let this one go. (Besides, Sherlock might be offended if he returns them and his laptop never has been the same since Sherlock last took it apart.)

He’s never much cared for his birthday, really -- once you’ve spent a few fighting a war, any subsequent ones where none of your friends die are kind of great by comparison -- but as birthday’s go, this one has been his favourite and that’s all down to Sherlock.

“Best birthday ever,” he says lightly, and meets Sherlock’s eyes honestly when he looks up with surprise in his own.

Sherlock’s smile is bright and blinding and as close to happy as John has ever seen. He smiles back as he rips the plastic from the first of his gifts, and thinks that might be the best gift of them all.


End file.
